Jack Valero: The Church is not against condoms...

Blogged by James Preece on 12th September 2010

I couldn't believe my ears this morning when I heard Jack Valero (official spokesman for the Newman Cause and coordinator of the Catholic Voices project) announce live on BBC TV that "the Church is not against condoms".

Wow.

Here's the full transcript of the exchange...

Jack Valero: The Church is not against condoms the Church is against promiscuity

Julie Bindel: The Church is against condoms!

Jack Valero: The Church is against promiscuity and sex outside of marriage

Colm O'Gorman: Is the Church now supporting the use of condoms?

Jack Valero: No, the Church is against... er... promiscuity

Colm O'Gorman: In marriage? Does the Church oppose the use of condoms in marriage?

Jack Valero: Well, no, the Church is against contraception of course.

Colm O'Gorman: So it's against condoms?

Jack Valero: But, but, we're talking here about HIV, no the Church is against contraception.

You can say what you like about TV being a stressful experience and it being easy to make mistakes (I've been there) but Jack Valero is a media expert who provides training as part of the Catholic Voices project! Is this the kind of thing he is teaching them? That the Church doesn't oppose the use of condoms?

That's certainly the view of his sidekick Austen Ivereigh who wrote on his blog at America Magazine that "the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of Aids is not contraception, and therefore morally licit if the intention is to prevent infection".

I'm sure this is exactly the sort of thing the Catholic Union of Great Britain had in mind when they agreed to bankroll the dynamic duo in their latest zany scheme.

Reader Comments

+14

Robin Carter said...

Jack Valero is a PR disaster. Why would anyone employ this man to speak on such sensitive subjects?A man like this does the Catholic church untold damage every time he opens his mouth! And this is the acceptable face of Opus Dei?

Janet said...

Yes, the man has turned the Birmingham 3 situation into a PR fiasco. Why did the bishops and the Birmingham Oratory choose this man. Was it simply because he was Opus Dei and his name sounded like the legendry Joaquin Navarro-Walls?

Max said...

Thankyou Julie Bindel for reminding us that the Church teaches that the use of condoms is wrong. Things must be pretty bad when lesbian feminists have to fill in the bits that the official Catholic spokesperson and bishops leave out.

Ed said...

Well, he's right. The Church is not against condoms per se - it's against their illicit use. You can make water balloons with condoms, for example, without committing any sin. The Church teaches that certain kinds of human act are wrong, not certain configurations of latex.

In fact - and here I know I'm just inviting the boos, even though it's true - the Church has yet to say definitively whether or not use of condoms is permitted in situations where one partner in a married couple is HIV positive, and there is no specifically contraceptive intent. Orthodox moral theologians have argued both sides of the question; I don't know if it's online, but Fr Martin Rhonheimer had a very good piece in First Things on the subject a few years back. The late Fr Neuhaus' journal can be accused of many things, but promoting moral dissent isn't one of them.

I thought Valero did well, given that he was stuck on a panel with two deeply unpleasant people who seemed determined to rehearse every anti-Catholic grievance known to man. It's always easy to pick out things one might have been done better after the fact.

Ed said...

Ted said...

Whilst the Church may have no position on the use of condoms as water bombs, it does have a clear position on their use in sexual acts - a quick read of Humanae Vitae sets out the position nice and concisely.

Mr Valero and Fr Martin Rhonheimer are both Opus Dei and, without wanting to seem rude, Opus Dei is not the sole source of orthodoxy in the Church.

Max said...

Sarah said...

Get real Jack, the Church is not going to be so reckless as to support the use of something as unreliable as condoms in the prevention of Aids!

Think about it. It's widely known that condoms, used "correctly" are about 85% effective as a contraceptive. That's quite a big failure rate, and this figure takes on board the fact that women of childbearing age are only fertile for about 24hs in a mentrual cycle. But HIV can be caught at any moment in the menstrual cycle. So the failure rate of condoms to protect against HIV is much much higher.

Ned said...

One of the best comments I ever read on this issue was in a letter from one non-Catholic scientist in The Spectator magazine, Dr. James McEvoy of Yale University Chemistry dept, refers to the review of the subject conducted for the (not notably conservative) UNAIDs programme. This report concludes that: "the public health benefit of condom promotion remains unestablished. In countries like Uganda that have curbed generalized epidemics, reducing the numbers of individuals' sex partners appears to have been more important than promoting the use of condoms." McEvoy concludes that 'the Catholic Church's recommendations in Africa, however irritating they might be for many Europeans, are therefore medically correct.'

Teddy said...

The issue of condom use in the serio-discordant marital union is a deliberate ploy on the part of those working hard to undermine the Church's teaching in Humanae Vitae. They imagine that by suggesting that because the Vatican hasn't spoken formally on it then it must be 'up for debate' among theologians thereby creating an atmosphere of dubium [doubt] over the fundamental question of contraception. It's interesting to note that the recently appointed private secretary Fr Michael Czerny SJ to Cardinal Turkson at the Council for Justice & Peace [which presumably has some oversight on development and HIV/AIDs prevention] and who is an expert adviser to Catholic Voices has said: http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20090325_1.htm"In the age of AIDS, there is a special case: married couples who are discordant (one spouse being HIV positive) or doubly infected (both being HIV positive). Here, the Church accompanies a couple pastorally in making the most life-enhancing decision about their lives, their family, their marital relationship and their desire to have children. They deserve the same respect and dignity as every other Christian, which includes help to form their consciences, not having a neatly packaged solution dictated to them from the pulpit, much less in the press or on a billboard. You will not find a stauncher champion of the duty to follow one’s conscience than Pope Benedict."

In my opinion that is a deliberate attempt to twist Benedict on conscience by somehow shoe-horning the now widespread misinterpretation of Newman on conscience [especially in Britain] on to Benedict.

Some in Opus Dei seem to think that the profile of the work by Fr Martin Rhonheimer in his debate with Rev Benedict Guervin OSB on the licit use of condom for HIV/Aids prevention, with the lack of any concrete response from Rhonheimer to Luke Gormally's brilliant 'Marriage & the Prophylactic Use of Condoms' National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly Vol.5 No.4 allows them to speculate on the licitness of condom use between serio-discordant spouses under the guise of the principle of the lesser evil. As the great Mgr Michel Schooyans said in an interview in 2006:"In morality the principle of the lesser evil is very simple. It consists of saying that when one is confronted by two inevitable evils, one must choose the lesser of these two evils. It is almost a question of good sense. As an example, let us revert to the case of condoms. To have relations with an HIV-positive and trying to protect oneself with condoms, is not something inevitable. There is always the freedom to have or not have this type of relations. One can apply this to other cases - for example abortion and euthanasia. The legalisation of abortion and of euthanasia is not inevitable ; nobody is forced to vote for such laws. Nobody is forced to practise abortion or to cause death “gently”. "(Rome and the Condom : A case of Media Intoxication?- Arianne Rolier)And it's also highly erroneous to argue that in the case of individuals who simply "cannot" avoid promiscuous behaviour that they at least practice 'safe sex' for the argument that merely providing the information is not the same as "promoting" condoms was roundly denounced by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1988 in a letter to the US bishops. He wrote that such instruction involves "compromises which may even give the impression of trying to condone practices which are immoral, for example, technical instructions in the use of prophylactic devices [Condoms]."

Mgr Suadeau Scientific Director of the Pontifical Academy for Life stated in July 2008 to a query about this topic:

“The discussion about the possible use of condoms in married sexual acts for serodiscordant couples has been going on in the Catholic Church since many years. Despite all pressures, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith do not agree with this proposal and has not produced, for that reason, the long awaited document on HIV/AIDS which different cardinals have announced in the past as "imminent". The declaration of Fr.Edwin Corros (in the Philipines) is only one example of many other previous declarations in the same sense made, in various countries, by priests, bishops and even cardinals. But the doctrine of the Catholic Church about the illicit character of the use of condoms remains the same.The best way to prevent HIV/AIDS is and remains abstinence, reduction of premarital sex, reduction of the number of partners, as it has been done in Uganda. For serodiscordant couples who want to have a baby, it all depends of the viremia of the infected partner. If the HIV+ person is treated, if his/her viremia is null, and if he/she does not seek any partner out of marriage, the probability of contamination of the HIV- partner is very low, and they could risk sexual relationship to have the baby. The question is not that of condom but that of serious treatment and no more sexual activities outside of marriage.”

But I don't think the Church has pronounced on whether a promiscuous person using a condom to protect a partner is a greater evil than not so using a condom. I guess it is a lesser evil for a bully to wear boxing gloves. Perhaps Jack was referring to this fact or as Ed says the latex configuration. Who knows - as Ed says - the environment was not easy.

The Church has made it clear that we can't formally cooperate with such promiscuity, E.g. by distributing condoms to the promiscuous – nor could we give boxing gloves to bullies. Jack was right to try to point out that promiscuity is the key problem concerning AIDS in Africa.

catholic mum said...

St John Smythe said...

Jack Valero is a good man who is trying to do his best to speak up on behalf of the Church in a largely hostile media environment. So what if he got into a bit of a muddle at one point? These things happen and, being harangued as he was, many people would have folded completely. He has often excellently stood up for Christ. People should be supporting him rather than knocking everything he says or does. Goodness knows, we Catholics need to love and support one another in this day and age!

Rosie said...

'We Catholics need to love and support one another in this day and age!' umm - except of course when Catholics like Fr Dermot Fenlon, Edmund Adamus or Pope Benedict XVI give us Catholic Teaching that doesn't quite fit with the official line from Westminster...

St John Smythe said...

No, except nothing. The Birmingham Oratory situation (about which I know very little) has nothing to do with this, so let's stick to the business in hand. Jack Valero has always been entirely supportive of and loyal to Pope Benedict XVI.

Edward Adamus was correct in what he said, but we can surely agree that there's more to the UK than what was contained in his description, and we won't attract people to Our Lord's Good News if we focus only on the negative. Yes, Britain demonstrates numerous aspects of the "culture of death", but, as Pope Benedict himself said, Christianity should not be understood simply as a series of prohibitions - those prohibitions are a necessary consequence of the positive Good News, and if we get that right, and communicate it clearly, charitably and insistently, people will come to know and love Our Lord and the culture of death will ebb away. Jack Valero is doing his bit. Can each of us say the same about ourselves?

Rosie said...

The Birmingham Oratory, Edmund Adamus and Pope Benedict have everything to do with 'the business in hand'. It all hinges on adherance to the Magisterium of the Church.

An un-compromised, clear and complete witness to the teachings of the Church are the duty of all Catholics, particularly when they are speaking in public. This, Jack Valero clearly failed to do.

It is simply not true to say that Edmund Adamus' work 'focuses only on the negative'. If you 'know very little' about the Birmingham Oratory situation I would suggest you find out about it which isn't exactly hard to do because despite Jack Valero's best efforts, there's plenty of material out there in the public domain. Try http://www.freethebirminghamoratorythree.blogspot.com/ for starters.

If Jack Valero wants to appear 'entirely supportive and loyal to Pope Benedict XVI' he could start by publicly retracting his comments about condoms.

paul massey said...

St John Smythe said...

I thought we were discussing what Jack Valero said on Sunday morning. The Birmingham Oratory has nothing to do with that - it's irrelevant. I have been reading the blogs (including the one you cite) and reports about the situation there quite extensively, and after all that I still know very little, so I don't feel qualified to opine on that topic. I will therefore say nothing further about it, and leave that issue to those better informed.

I didn't deny that Pope Benedict was relevant - please quote me accurately. I agree that "an un-compromised, clear and complete witness to the teachings of the Church are the duty of all Catholics", and my position simply is that Jack Valero did his best, didn't quite hit the mark in his explanation of condoms, but if you watch the clip again you can see what he was trying to explain. See my other comments on this posting. JV has been on the media time and again defending the Pope and the Church - people shouldn't be castigating him for getting into a momentary twist on Sunday.

Edmund Adamus is a great guy and doing good work, but his interview did focus particularly on the negative aspects of UK society. Don't get me wrong, the UK has massive problems and since 1968 (and probably before) there has been a consistent assault on the dignity of human life, marriage and the family. We need to work to change this. However, Pope Benedict thinks, and I agree with him, that the way to do this is by communicating Our Lord's message of hope and love to the nation. In doing so, obviously it will be necessary to criticise and correct the evil we see, but I think to make the latter the primary emphasis of an interview in advance of the Pope's visit to the UK was a misjudgment, even though what he said was essentially correct.

Ted said...

Anonymous said...

Gosh you are all miserable toads. Jack is a good guy and he is with us on catholicism. I think what he was trying to say was that the church isn't against a piece of latex. Condoms could be used morally for instance as sleeping bags for mice who get cold in the chilly english winter or indeed for water balloons.Jack was trying to make a point and it came out wrong....sorry have none of your ever done that? It was a really difficult situation. I love this blog but i think you've gone too far this time.....Jack was being murdered on live television yesterday and he did pretty well to defend the church under such serious opposition.We need to be supporting people on our side not complaining about them.

Max said...

Yes indeed the situation was difficult but it would not only be naive but also deliberately misleading to say that Jack Valero was talking about the moral neutrality of a piece of latex.

If Jack were truly 'with us on catholicism' and it just 'came out wrong' in the heat of the moment, he must make an official public correction of a public mistake. This is, after all, a pretty big issue and it should be quite easy to make a correcting statement as he is spokesman for Catholic Voices and Opus Dei with plenty of media outlets open to him.

If this correction is not forthcoming it is reasonable to assume that his statement was not a mistake, but in fact quite deliberate. I fear that we will be waiting 'indefinately' for any such correction.

ANON said...

In 'The Tablet' (10 July 2004) Fr Rhonheimer wrote:

'..a married man who is HIV-infected and uses the condom to protect his wife from infection is not acting to render procreation impossible but to prevent infection. If conception is prevented this will be an unintentional side-effect and will not therefore shape the moral meaning of the act as a contraceptive act.'

The first thing to say is that the couple have chosen to have sex. They have therefore willingly undertaken to honour (in the words of 'Humanae Vitae')the 'inseparable connection' between the unitive and procreative significance of their choice, a connection which is 'inherent to the marriage act', 'established by God' and which 'man on his own initiative may not break'.

Now in fact they use a condom and thereby render procreation impossible.

Fr Rhonheimer, however, points out that since they act simply with the intention of preventing infection, contraception is an 'unintentional side-effect' of what they do, and therefore argues their use of the condom is morally OK.

But even if this isn't, morally- speaking, a 'contraceptive act', does Fr Rhonheimer's conclusion follow?

The separation of the unitive and the procreative may not be intended, but as a foreseen and willingly embraced consequence of what the couple do intend (to have sex and to prevent infection)it is surely something for which they are answerable. For in general it is not simply the effects which we intend which set the limit to our accountability.

So even if the couple are not guilty of the sin of contraception, we are nonetheless entitled to ask what justifies their acceptance of the separation of the unitive and the procreative, a separation to which the Church attaches such significance.

(i) The couple cannot answer that their justification is the prevention of infection, because the danger of infection arose only because of their choice to have sex in the first place.

(ii) So it seems that it must be something which the choice to have sex itself seems to make available which, if anything, justifies their acceptance of the contraceptive side-effect. But in the context, what could this 'something' be, other than the supposed unitive significance of their intercourse?

(iii) The situation, then, seems to be this. The couple are so intent on the unitive significance of their intercourse that they are ready to try to achieve it, even at the expense of doing something (using a condom to prevent infection) which they foresee and accept as making procreation impossible.

(iv) This being so, surely it is clear that this couple has little grasp of the anti-contraceptive truth taught by 'Humanae Vitae'. Their willingness to try to pursue the unitive good of sex while being ready to do that which entails the procreative good being erased shows why we should be profoundly uneasy about their choices. Their use of a condom to prevent infection may not, as Fr Rhonheimer claims, be formally-speaking a contraceptive choice, but he ignores the fact that the whole scenario he commends draws deeply on the contraceptive mentality which it is the Church's mission to counter-act.

Fr Rhonheimer's analysis, then, focuses relentlessly upon intention, at the expense of sufficient sensitivity to our responsibility for both (i) the mentality underlying the intentions we form, and (ii) the 'side-effects' which our intentional actions bring about. The result of Fr Rhonheimer's analysis is, in this case, a return to a kind of academic narrowness in casuistry which is ill-suited to serve the Church's vision of a Culture of Life.

ANON said...

Fr Rhonheimer’s reply to Fr Guevin, to which ‘Teddy’ has already referred (available at http://americanpapist.com/ncbq/562030k671p51440.pdf) is considerably more nuanced than his article in ‘The Tablet’.

For example, his argument in ‘The Tablet’ concerning condoms in marriage, on which I comment above, mentioned ‘pastoral or simply prudential reasons’ why using a condom might be ill-advised, or for which even ‘total continence’ might be indicated. In his reply to Fr Guevin, however, Fr Rhonheimer clarifies that such reasons might indeed be ‘moral reasons’, whereas in his ‘Tablet’ article he had given as an example of such reasons merely ‘the risk of the condom not working’.

More generally, as I accepted in my comment above, Fr Rhonheimer has a strong case for arguing that using a condom in marriage to prevent infection with HIV is not, morally-speaking, contraceptive, and this case is spelled out in much greater detail in his reply to Fr Guevin; but in that reply Fr Rhonheimer also says quite openly, which he did not in ‘The Tablet’, that ‘what I have said is not an argument which shows that the use of condoms in such cases is good, licit, or even advisable. As a priest, I would try to help a couple in this situation to live in complete sexual abstinence…’

My point against Fr Rhonheimer in the post above was that the morality of married people using condoms to prevent infection with HIV is not determined simply by showing that, morally-speaking, they are not contracepting. But although (in contrast to his ‘Tablet’ article) Fr Rhonheimer’s reply to Fr Guevin makes clear that he acknowledges that this is so, he still seems too inclined to think that, from the point of view of ‘Humanae Vitae’, the only relevant kind of moral failure is that involved in intentional contraception.

The contrast to infertility caused by intentional contraception upon which Fr Rhonheimer most focuses is the infertility of the aged or the naturally sterile; in other words, conditions entirely unrelated to the intentions of those who suffer them. But what the question about condoms and HIV prevention brings to the fore is a third possibility, in which infertility, though unintended, is nonetheless within the scope of moral responsibility because it is a foreseen and accepted side-effect of what one chooses, sexually, to do.

From the perspective of ‘Humanae Vitae’, how should we view a couple’s moral responsibility for such a side-effect, which is of course a natural evil? To put it in the terms Fr Rhonheimer uses in his reply to Fr Guevin, can there (from the perspective of ‘Humanae Vitae’) be ‘good reason to have sexual intercourse’ in a situation in which one foresees and accepts the deprivation of the procreative good as a side-effect of what one intends?

‘A marital act thus performed’, writes Fr Rhonheimer, ‘and without opposing one’s will to the good of offspring within that act, has still a point as a marital act of loving union.’ But intending what foreseeably and (to oneself) acceptably has the effect of rendering procreation impossible surely expresses, if not 'opposition' to, then at least estrangement from, ‘the good of offspring’. And if this is right, how authentic (from the point of view of 'Humanae Vitae') is the unitive good at which the couple aim? In seeking it while willingly allowing its procreative complement to fall away, are they not, at some level, giving voice to the contraceptive mentality?

JOHN said...

And so the archbishop's man show his expertise !!As advised James it was he (JV) who took the heat.

Had he had half a brain he would have found out who was on the show and what the agenda was. But he and Mr Quinn David (also on the instruction panel of catholic voices) have common ground , as Quinn stated in 1997 that he was in favour of people using contraception.

What was very obvious was that NO ONE DEFENDED THE POPE FROM THE OUTRAGEOUS PERSONAL ATTACKS or the questioning of the Holy Fathers authority.

I am now of the mind that the Pope has been enticed by senior clergy to England to be abandoned, discredited and humiliated and most important challenged on his authority as Pope. Neither Vincent Nichols nor any of his representatives have spoken out against the scurrilous attacks by the media on the Pope.

Could it be that the real reason for this STATE visit is to so demoralise and discredit PB16 that he resign and leave the door open to VN and his aids to pursue a secular Church.

The programme was a lose lose for JV. Today's headlines are Opus dei and Bishop's representative for catholic voices states THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT AGAINST CONDOMS...I wonder if the Archbishop VN will distance himself from this comment??? - What is the bet that he will not and indeed he may welcome it.

JOHN said...

St John Smythe said...

I've considered it now, and I've rejected that hypothesis. Of course JV wasn't trying to argue that the Church thinks the use of contraception, and condoms in particular, is licit. What he was trying to advocate, and he got into difficulty in the heat of the moment, is to look behind the condom issue to see what the Church is fundamentally saying: sex is only for marriage, a life-long commitment between a man and a woman, open to life and the foundation of families. It follows from this that contraception and promiscuity are wrong, and that's how to understand these aspects of the Church's teaching. Without this background, the Church's line on condoms can seem arbitrary and heartless. With it, it makes huge sense. But such an argument is difficult to frame clearly on a Sunday-morning discussion when the presenter doesn't really know what's going on and the other panel members are in the attack and scorn zone. Jack Valero (and the rest of us) should keep on trying, though!

St John Smythe said...

JOHN said...

Quinn Sunday Times (Irish edition) Page 13 Sunday 24 August 1997. Am happy to send as an attachment if anyone wants it(can I attach here? - please advise failing that I can send to James and he can forward)

JV is in the right company and saying the right things - like minded is the point and his comment on National TV is clear

ANON said...

To recap the argument of my previous post:

A married couple, one of whom is HIV-infected, who choose to have sex and, in using a condom to prevent infection, forsee and accept the consequent separation of the unitive and procreative significance of their intercourse, are setting themselves against the vision of 'Humanae Vitae' - even if, as Fr Rhonheimer insisted in 'The Tablet' in 2004, they do not thereby commit the sin of contraception.

But what of sex between unmarried people? In the same article, Fr Rhonheimer writes:

'The moral norm condemning contraception as intrinsically evil does not apply to these cases. Nor can there be Church teaching about this; it would be simply nonsensical to establish moral norms for intrinsically immoral types of behaviour.'

This is an argument of much wider scope than whether to use condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV. According to Fr Rhonheimer, because sex outside marriage is 'intrinsically immoral behaviour', the question of whether or not it reflects the interdependence of the unitive and the procreative can be of no moral significance.

But why? Fr Rhonheimer's own analysis of contraception emphasises that it involves two choices: whether or not to have sex, and whether or not to contracept. And if there are two choices here, then surely there must be two opportunities to go wrong?

Fr Rhonheimer thinks not. 'The teaching of the Church', he explains, concerns the 'essentially marital nature of human sexuality.' Now that is true - but 'essentially' does not mean 'exclusively'. The significance of human sexuality is indeed perfected in marriage, but this doesn't mean that, outside marriage, its significance is entirely lost, or that moral distinctions arising from that significance cannot be made. The interdependence of the unitive and the procreative casts light on all sexual behaviour, and we quite properly make moral distinctions according to how adequately sexual choices reflect that interdependence.

Even in contemplating sex outside marriage, therefore, whether or not to practice contraception is a morally significant choice; and so, also, is whether or not to accept an (unintended) contraceptive effect as the price worth paying for obtaining sexual pleasure while managing to avoid infecting your partner.

Of course, someone choosing to have sex outside marriage is on the face of it unlikely to recognise the moral significance of choices concerning contraception. But rather than challenge this, as the Church is called to do, and insist that this significance exists and cannot simply be weighed up against the (very different) kind of moral significance which attaches to infecting your partner, Fr Rhonheimer wishes to reassure us that it is entirely reasonable for us to be concerned only with the latter, and that once an initial choice (to have extra-marital sex) is made, all we need (morally) to consider is how to sin with what he (apparently without irony) calls a 'sense of responsibility.'

In this, Fr Rhonheimer appears to collude with the culture of death, in trying to suppress any question about the morality of using condoms, and in pretending that, even if one has committed oneself to sin, there need be no bad consequences which one cannot, 'responsibly' and effectively, prevent.

The reason, after all, why the Catholic Church is so hated in this connection is because she insists (i) that the choice to have sex (whether in marriage or not) presents HIV-infected people with a moral dilemma which cannot be simply resolved in favour of doing what is necessary to protect one's partner; and (ii) that the only authentic approach to situations like this, in which, because of one's initial commitment to sin, whatever one chooses to do next must be wrong, is not to embrace Fr Rhonheimers fantasy of the 'responsible' management of consequences, but rather to undertake repentance and conversion of life.

Nicolas Bellord said...

Interesting post from Anon. A question that arises from Father Rhonheimer's position is what happens when an unmarried couple who intend to get married jump the gun. Would the use of contraception in those circumstances be morally indifferent? I think not.

To the Blessed Virgin Prayer for England

O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England thy "Dowry" and upon us all who greatly hope and
trust in thee.

By thee it was that Jesus our Saviour and our hope was given unto the world; and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more.

Plead for us thy children, whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the cross.

O sorrowful Mother! intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the supreme Shepherd, the Vicar of thy
Son.

Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we may all deserve to see and praise God, together with thee, in our heavenly home.

Amen.

Couple's Prayer

O God, our heavenly Father, protect and bless us. Deepen and strengthen our love for each other day by day.

Grant that by thy mercy, neither of us may ever say one unkind word to the other. Forgive and correct our faults, and make us constantly to forgive one
another should one of us unconsciously hurt the other.

Make us and keep us sound and well in body, alert in mind, tender in heart, and devout in spirit. O Lord, grant us each to rise to the other's best. Then, we
pray thee, add to our common life such virtues as only thou canst give.

And so, O Father, consecrate our life and love completely to thy worship, and to the service of all about us, especially those whom thou hast appointed us to
serve, that we may always stand before thee in happiness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.